Ace...Good to hear that you have your replacement. I'm sure that you will enjoy building it just as much as the first, since you know how "the build" goes now.
You stated that someone else was flying #1 when it was destroyed and it wasn't the pilots fault, but I stopped letting someone else fly my planes a while back as I found that I can "crash'em" [X(] as good as they can and there are no hard feelings afterward. [:@]

Jim, there was not much left worth hanging on to. I kept the aluminum struts, main gear, and nose cone. The engine and electronics were fine. Throttle servo being the excetion.
IFW, there's a couple of us that fly each other's planes and we have no thought of anything if and/or whensomething happens. This day in particular something flew into my left eye. My friend actually had to run out to a screaming me. The crap in my eye was in one of those ways where the eye'swater-up and twitch. I could almost not even see the plane.

Hello im Pepe from mexico a friend of mine give me this plane crash im trying to restore but really i dont have any idea about the firewall and the position of the engine box if you can take some photos to the inside of fuselage and send me my e mail is pepebaca@live.com.mx i take some photos to watch what im talking about for your atenttion thanks

Well its been about five or six years since I purchased my Ultimate, but it is almost ready to fly. I got a question though. I tried to balance it without the wings on at 1" behind the front bolt, as suggested in this thread but its extremely tail heavy, but it balances fine at the suggested balance points in the instruction. Although it is difficult to get your fingers at the cg under the top wing. How is everyone balancing their planes as suggested in the thread or by the instructions? Just for reference it will fly with a Brillelli 50 cc engine up front and I have my batteries at the cg near the sides of the fuel tank.

Working on the assembly of my first Ultimate, I have read most of the 273 Pages. I have noticed on the wing joiners that even without the aluminum piece in place both wings can mate flat against each other and still have a little play. This being noted I would have to say there is a lot of slop between the joiner and the wing pockets, this makes me curious if that is why some have had joiner failures. The slop could cause poor glue joints that allow flex over time which could lead to the break.

This "slop" that you are referring to is usually an unwanted feature on most planes that have a wing joiner setup. That is why I use gorilla Glue on all wings that are joined in this manner. The glue expands to fill those voids. I have been flying my Ultimate since this thread began, in fact, I flew it this past Monday afternoon...a MOST enjoyable and fun plane to fly.
Of course, my choice of glue type is just my preference only.

This "slop" that you are referring to is usually an unwanted feature on most planes that have a wing joiner setup. That is why I use gorilla Glue on all wings that are joined in this manner. The glue expands to fill those voids. I have been flying my Ultimate since this thread began, in fact, I flew it this past Monday afternoon...a MOST enjoyable and fun plane to fly.
Of course, my choice of glue type is just my preference only.

did you do any mod to the joining? or did you do as the manual instructed using Gorilla glue?

I just cut the factory plywood(1/8 thick) off the wing joiner and replaced it with a 1/4 thick piece of ply. I only removed 3/16 total off the joiner so I could make a more precise fit into the wings. Between the thicker ply and the better fit I hopefully will not have a failure.

No, I didn't do anything different other than what the manual said. When we first started our building of these planes, we didn't know about any wing joiner failures, so I didn't do anything other than sand the joiner (it was to tight of a fit) and used the G'Glue. Believe me, it has withstood some "tasks of flight" and I have not had a single problem.....so far.[:-]

Thanks for this thread guys. After reading every word and book-marking much of the great advice whilst I looked for a kit, I eventually discovered a kit on sale for half price (which over here made it about the same price as over there), so jumped at it.

Mine has a Saito FG-36 for power as I'm not a 3-D flyer and am content with performing lower-power pattern-style aerobatics. One reason for purchasing this kit was to study how a big light bipe is constructed, because my scratch-built own design 71in span Jungmeister seen in my avatar, which is to the same scale with the same wing area and powered by another FG-36, is rather overweight at over 17lb. I've learned some good ideas from this kit!

I did make a pair of replacement wing joiners for the Ultimate from beech engine bearer, and also stiffened the engine mount by adding 1/8in birch ply plates fully covering the front and rear faces of the firewall, and a square of 3/32 liteply to seal the top of the engine box. I glassed the entire engine mount box, with glass tape round all the joints, and the whole then being encased in 6oz glass/epoxy. As guys have mentioned, the u/c is softly sprung, but as the Saito only turns an 18x8 there's plenty of ground clearance for the prop.

Pics 1 and 2 show my way of securing the top wing servo connectors to the rear cabane with white heatshrink tubing.

Pics 3 and 4 show the engine and cowl cut-out. I opened out the scoop beneath the spinner to force more cooling air into the cowl.

I fitted a 16oz tank in the location suggested by Maudib. Pic 5 shows the tank wrapped in foam plastic and secured to what was the Rx mounting plate with Velcro straps. The three 2S 2200mAh lipo batteries, one for the ignition and two for the avionics, go in the next bay behind the tank on a new plate, and the Spektrum AR9000 Rx is velcro'd beneath the cockpit.

The blue finned device seen above the battery is a Powerbox Gemini dual battery regulator, and the black rectangular item above the tank is a 4.8V 5A regulator for the ignition supply.

I've used all the kit hardware except for the hinges which I replaced with Dubro heavy-duty hinges, and I employed a Dubro E/Z Mount Cowl System instead of the wooden blocks.

Being rather wary of engine vibration levels, I've fitted titanium-geared servos all round, using Savox SC1256TG for the ailerons, and Spektrum AR6030s for rudder and elevators. These are overkill for the engine power I'm using, but I wanted to minimise the risk of crumbling gears. In fact the Saito doesn't exhibit much vibration at all, which is very pleasing.

The model came out at around 15lb as have several others on this thread, but the plane is a delight to fly, with its attractive colour scheme enhancing every manoeuvre.

The CG came out in the recommended spot, and could maybe do with moving back a tad. I fitted a Spektrum telemetry module and altimeter sensor, which shows that on a good day the ship will do more than a 600ft vertical climb. Though it certainly won't prop-hang on the power it's got, it isn't short of vertical performance for such things as consecutive vertical left-then-right rolls, or vertical snaps, with enough power and speed remaining after either manoeuvre for a short vertical line before a stall turn and then repeating the rolls on the down-line.

The climb-out from take-off isn't as steep as I'd like because of the lower power and it definitely won't pull up into a prop-hang from take-off! Landing behaviour is excellent though, with a slow nose-high approach and most times I can get it to touch down tailwheel first.

The model is definitely a keeper and I'm looking forward to flying it a lot.